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covered. One of the biggest enemies
of chicken health is wet, muddy
conditions. Another enemy is hawks
that have easy access to hens in a run
that does not have a roof. Because of
a covered run, my hens are kept dry
year round with rarely any health
problems. I am also a firm believer
in using hay for bedding. In my hen-
house and run, I like at least eight
to ten inches of hay. This serves a
couple of purposes. First, it gives the
hens something to do to keep them
busy. They are continuously scratch-
ing through this layer of hay for
seeds, bugs, and to dig holes to lay
in and take dust baths. Giving hens
something to do in confinement will
keep them happy and less inclined to
fight with each other. Every morn-
ing I toss a small scoop of scratch
grains in the henhouse and in the
run. The hens will spend hours pick-
ing through the bedding hay, which
keeps the hay aired out and dry from
their pooping. The other added ben-
efit to keeping hens on hay is they
will kick the hay through the 1x1-
inch welded wire around their run.
Every two weeks I rake up what they
kick through the wire. This stuff is
already mixed with manure and is
chopped up fine by the hens’ con-
stant scratching. I generally collect
two 5-gallon buckets each time. I
keep this in a special wire compost
enclosure that I put on the vegetable
and flower gardens after it has aged.
You will be surprised at how much
of this composted hay you acquire in
a year’s time. To maintain this bed-
ding you only have to add a couple
chunks of hay every two or three
weeks. This is not labor intensive,
which you will discover yourself.
On the chicken house itself you
will need a door: 2 feet wide x 5 feet
tall is plenty big. To the right of the
door are my homemade nesting box-
es. Three boxes are enough since the
hens will probably only use one or
maybe two nests. Opposite the door
on the rear wall I place two roosting
bars made from two-inch oak limbs
and mount them about three feet off
the wooden floor placing them about
one foot apart. The last requirement
inside the henhouse is a three-gallon
chicken waterer setting on top of
half an 8-inch cement block. Keep-
ing the water up off the floor is criti-
cal to prevent the hens from stand-
ing in and fouling their water supply.
IntherunitselfIhavea2x4
board at about the middle of the run
to provide an outside roosting bar,
which they enjoy and use daily. At
one corner on the end of the run I
havea2x3feetdoorforaccessto
the run. Just inside the door I have
a thirty-pound gravity feeder on a
chain hanging from the roof rafter.
The screw eye on the roof has a hook
on which I can raise or lower the
feeder to compensate for the birds’
heights. Always keep the feeder at
head height and your chickens will
not be wasting feed by scratching
it all over the ground or sitting in
the feed and fouling it. I also keep
a homemade gravity feeder made of
lumber inside the hen house.
From almost fifty years’ experi-
ence, I know that chickens like to
be outside in the run, and an out-
side feeder only encourages them
to spend most of their time out of
the henhouse in fresh air. The in-
side feeder is optional since they are
more inclined to eat outside, though
I do think they enjoy having mul-
tiple feeding sites available and of-
ten feed inside on especially windy
days.
You may wonder why I choose
1x1 welded cage wire on my run,
Australorp Chicken
34
Example of a Moveable
Chicken Coop